JTA Daily Briefing

Klezmer and kosher wine sate brunchers at City Winery
City Winery brings klezmer and kosher wine to NYC's Sunday brunchers. Video by Liz Nord. Read more »

Will pro-Israel groups miss Ahmadinejad?
With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad standing for reelection later this month, Jewish groups face an interesting question: Would they be worse off if they didn't have the Holocaust-denying leader to kick around anymore? Read more »

Obama at Buchenwald
The text and video from President Obama's visit to Buchenwald. Read more »

Recalling an educator with a different slant
Franklin Hamlin Littell, an influential Holocaust educator who died at the age of 91, was known for bringing a different point of view to the topic. Read more »

Op-Ed: Obama has it wrong on linkage
President Obama's thinking is feckless when he says that solving the Palestinian-Israel problem will help in dealing with the Iranian threat, writes the head of a pro-Israel think tank. Read more »

Op-Ed: 'Tough love' for Israel would pain pro-Israel peace camp
The United States must insist that Israel freeze all settlement building, author and activist Dan Fleshler says, but he's hoping it won't take "tough love" because of the hurt it would cause. Read more »

In case you're wondering about Obama's speech...
Jewish groups continue to weigh in: They all liked Obama's affirmation of the "unbreakable" bonds between the United States and Israel, and his denunciation of Holocaust denial. But there was also wide disappointment with the portion of the speech on Iran, which was seen as not forceful enough in proclaiming U.S. opposition to the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons.

Steal this post!
The decline of Jewish newspapers is being accelerated by the rise of Jewish news aggregation Web sites which steal content from more prominent sources, robbing them of desperately needed licensing fees and revenue-generating traffic. And JTA's director of digital media, Daniel Sieradski, has something to say about it -- and plenty of rabbis to back him up!

Should we spend money on Jews or on helping others?
The president of the American Jewish World Service, Ruth Messinger, reopens the debate with her speech at the ordination ceremony of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Playing Madoff
The producers of "Madoff: Made Off With America," the unofficial story of the Bernard Madoff scandal, have cast Paul Cohen, a Jersey City, N.J., resident and newspaper advertising executive, for the lead role, according to the Forward.

Dear Reform movement
In an open letter, movement leaders spell out the grand bargain that the severely-scaled-back-and-$6-million-poorer Union for Reform Judaism is offering its member congregations.

20 years of change
Roger Cohen writes that nothing has changed in the Mideast in 20 years. He missed Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, an intifada, the creation of a militarized Palestinian state, some peace deals and a sea change in Israeli public opinion, writes JTA Managing Editor Uriel Heilman.